pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

how far out does P4k plan its daily reviews, anyone know? couple weeks? month or more?

We get calls to action every few weeks. Deadlines are usually at least a week before release.

Xp noz - what about the ones column? i don’t read it frequently but it seems like it covers regional rap with low streaming numbers. most recent song covered is ‘punchline’ by fl jitt, which has 200 likes on soundcloud 5 days after the p4k post and 42 monthly soundcloud listeners

The Ones is great, he finds so much cool stuff and I've never heard of it

it would be cool as fuck if pfork reviewed records with 200 bandcamp streams that sounded like 2020 mary

i guess that would be cool...? does that even exist?

unlimited eclecticism isn’t possible. to you, limited eclecticism means not covering artists with 200 streams that sounds like mary j blige, to lj it means not writing rave reviews of a histrionic welsh guy reading his phd thesis into a distorted mic over some spaz ectopic lo-fi beats. you can never both be satisfied by one group of people who obviously bring their own tastes into consideration when choosing what to cover

I don’t know who “2020 Mary” would necessarily be – but Summer Walker’s fantastic Life on Earth EP got a middling/negative write-up and a 6.7 rating. (At least it was reviewed, I guess.)

To lay all my cards on the table – here’s a gripe I posted in the rolling r&b thread earlier this year:

Kaash Paige's new album is relegated to a half-dismissive item in Pitchfork's weekly rap column (which "covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, dances, weird tweets, fashion trends—and anything else that catches our attention in the world of hip-hop").

Glad it "caught their attention," I guess. Maybe her next "weird tweet" will get more notice from them.

― Get your filthy hands off my asp (morrisp), Friday, August 21, 2020 2:13 PM (three months ago)

(Kaash is one of the best/coolest/most exciting new artists, IMO – and her album is awesome.)

The Brandy album was amazing imo and if there's a more interesting or well-written R&B album from this year id like to hear it

that masego album is entirely laudable too!

i dont get what forks' point is. that there's lots of good R&B so its ok that none of it gets Fiona level scores, even by legacy artists who are pillars of the form?

it's ok if pitchfork reviews every record forever with a pic of a different ape giving itself a bubbler tbf

the ones is cool for covering lesser known artists but that's track blogging, basically a running annotated playlist, i'm talking about actual long form criticism

and yeah i guess most of the would be marys of today probably sound like summer walker but then them reviewing the actual summer walker is not the answer because she is a huge pop star, not someone with 200 bandcamp sales. there is for instance tons of summer/sza type music being made by lesser known artists, check something like the crystal sounds youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videos there is more music being made than ever in almost every genre right now and almost none of it is being looked at seriously by "actual music critics" i would love to read 1000 words about what makes one of these artists special from someone with unique knowledge of and passion for the subject but that's obviously not the way anything works anymore none of this matters and music criticism is completely over

err https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videos

i don't know why it's not letting me post that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrystalSoun

ok fuck it i give up you can just google it

Looks like Crystal Sounds is a promotional platform for “upcoming artists.” If some of them are special, I imagine they’ll get there, no?

(or to my earlier points – if they can’t appreciate Summer’s EP, and don’t think Kaash is worth reviewing at all, I don’t have a lot of confidence in their ability to suss out obscure diamonds in the rough. there are already plenty of major-label R&B artists that they could be giving more attention to.)

If Crystal Sounds is a youtube channel, are you trying to embed every single video on the channel, or one single youtube?

and yeah i guess most of the would be marys of today probably sound like summer walker but then them reviewing the actual summer walker is not the answer because she is a huge pop star, not someone with 200 bandcamp sales. there is for instance tons of summer/sza type music being made by lesser known artists, check something like the crystal sounds youtube there is more music being made than ever in almost every genre right now and almost none of it is being looked at seriously by "actual music critics" i would love to read 1000 words about what makes one of these artists special from someone with unique knowledge of and passion for the subject but that's obviously not the way anything works anymore none of this matters and music criticism is completely over

― 100 flacs (noz), Saturday, November 28, 2020 9:51 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i've always thought there was a difference between critics, who review stuff that's already broken through a certain level of public awareness or at least got signed/good publicists, and like bloggers/zines (im thinking like maximum rocknroll) that cover underground bubbling up 200 views type of shit. this post seems to suggest a blurring of these lines, which is cool and maybe a good idea, but idk if it makes sense to lay the blame for that squarely on p4k

i do think p4k sucks in a lot of ways, but it's hard to separate those from my subjective feelings about music. i figure a lot of the reasons the site annoys me stem from a combination of (1) they're trying to write a publication that appeals to a broad group of people, and the lcd p4k reader is by definition middlebrow in ways i find irksome, and (2) they're a relatively large group of people with diverse tastes, so a lot of it is gonna be stuff i don't personally vibe with. there are a small number of individual music writers who i just click with where everything they write, their taste, it's just like... damn. yes. but it's unreasonable to expect like 30-40 writers to hit it consistently. still, the site is pretty good

the occasional quite obscure bandcamp etc. release does get reviewed but it's not common or anything and i wouldn't expect it to be.

Have they given a full-length review to an unsigned artist since this one? (Serious q)

we went over “they only reviews wilco and white guitar music” like 2-3 weeks ago and Austin stopped short of posting the rough draft of the manifesto he’ll post when he shoots up p4k hq like a week after that

― flopson, Saturday, November 28, 2020 1:05 PM

ignoring that you are essentially speaking out of turn for me, i have a couple of genuine questions-

1. have i ever said anything that was specifically offensive to you? in here or anywhere else? truly sorry if so.

2. when have i ever given the impression that i am not posting at least partially in jest? especially in this topic?

i don't think it's any secret that i don't like pfork and i never have. but that's where it ends. i might say, "fuck these people and everything they stand for!!!" but that's, like, part of the joke because i legitimately don't even read the site that often - maybe once a week, for less than ten minutes. it does upset me that so many people place such a high authority in what they publish, but oh well. it's a shitty music rag, what can i do?

(jokingly talk shit about it, that's what)

insinuating (even jokingly) that i'm the kind of person who would even consider violence as a reaction to something as meaningless as a music reviews site is disappointing and very disturbing. it's even more upsetting because it's such an egregious leap to make.

it's silly that i even need to clarify, but i just want it said: i have no ill will towards anyone on ilm who also contributes to pfork (or any major music publication). you guys are living your best life and are alright by me.

maybe suggest reviewing the slovenly catalogue for one of their sunday retrospectives? just to see the reaction. now that would be funny.

do you like My Life

slovenly second most underrated sst band behind saccharine trust

both bands would be great candidates for a cool remaster/reissue series and critical reassessment (like the pylon box) but frankly it's hard to fault Pitchfork for not caring about Greg Ginn's label when he doesn't himself give a fuck about the bands or label

slovenly went to my high school, maybe i will pitch a sunday review.

need clarification, alfred: do you mean the album or, like, your existence?

actually, y'know what? doesn't matter because my answer is the same in both scenarios: i think the world is a better place for it/you being here.

ums: sst catalogue purgatory is a very sad and very real phenomenon that deserves its own topic. it would be wild to see pfork (or any other comparable publication) just dive into highlighting something that's been out of print for decades and is not really accessible in the contemporary world.

if anybody should write that piece, ot should be you, tyler \m/

Have they given a full-length review to an unsigned artist since this one? (Serious q)

― meditate in my direction (morrisp), Sunday, November 29, 2020 10:56 AM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Chance the Rapper is probably the most obvious example

they just reviewed Roc Marciano

they reviewed MIKE when he was just bandcamp

signed/unsigned is an increasingly hard distinction to make in hip hop though

they reviewed a lot of Griselda stuff before the Shady Records deal

Ka I think basically puts his own stuff out

Are there any other written music review outlets (those solely dedicated to music, I guess) besides pitchfork at this point

Stereogum does well.

xps Austin- just jokes bruv :)

Dusted is still going xp

and The Singles Jukebox

"contemporary guitar driven music, which is overwhelmingly mediocre."

it's true that the majority of the guitar driven music they choose to cover is mediocre, and most of the best rock since the mid 2010s has never been covered by pitchfork.

they have somewhat covered african guitar stuff and the post fahey underground diaspora stuff but i'd push back on "guitar driven" music necessarily being U.S./U.K. rock bands too

man - is Ian Cohen’s new Smashing Pumpkins review good or what!

it's definitely or what

Listening to Saccharine Trust's We Became Snakes - I didn't know this band were this good. This is a modern jazz album, basically.

what does p4k have against sault??? has anyone gotten to the bottom of this?

voting in the readers poll, most albums auto-populate but sault doesn't come up with anything

pitchfork is dumb

they didn't review either sault album, their list of albums for the autofill in the readers poll is always mostly just things they've reviewed

they only covered the Sault album in an Albums You May Have Missed list

lol I put 8 songs from Visions Of Bodies Being Burned on my tracks ballot because fuck you, Pitchfork

Giving them your data will definitely show them!

It's true, #9 was my mother's maiden name and #10 was my Social Security number

698-67-5309

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